15th April 2013
I missed it at the time but I heard Ceri Thomas speak on the radio yesterday afternoon in relation to tonight’s Panorama broadcast on North Korea. Looking into that I see Mr Thomas was appointed BBC News head of programmes, responsible for Today, Newsnight and Panorama, last month. Previously he had been editor of Today. I have written to him several times.
Then, as you would imagine, he was interviewed by his old staff on Today this morning about the story. The connection wasn’t mentioned.
The issue at point is whether Panorama are justified in showing a programme this evening using footage filmed on a trip to North Korea with students from the London School of Economics. The visit was arranged by a lady former lecturer of the University, for ten members I supect of it’s Students’ Union Korean society, who is married to the BBC reporter. He went along posing as an academic with a two person sound and camera team. There are different recollections about exactly what was said to whom before the visit. The BBC accept there was a risk to people’s safety if the hidden filming was discovered by Korean officials but they say the making of an important story in the public interest, with the adult students’ consent, warranted it.
The Students’ Union is a separate body to the University itself and as such there is no official LSE connection. The BBC reporter was not going to mention who he was with. However when the university authorities found out they did not like it. They went straight to the Chairman of the BBC Trust asking him to get the programme dropped. He supported the Director General who supported his staff all the way down to the Panorama team itself. However as often happens in these situations the story seems to have acquired legs of it’s own. This afternoon Universities UK, representing 100 institutions, has come out on the side of the LSE as have the British Academy and the Royal Society. The academics seem to be fearful of what may happen to them on future visits to sensitive areas of the world. I will watch the programme with interest.
I wrote about a problem with my phone last Friday. I sent off a particular email this afternoon. Within thirty seconds of doing that the phone rang once. 1471 informed me the call came from the mobile phone of one of my daughters. I think that is unlikely however. When I rang her phone immediately after it was not answered. After a bit it went to voicemail. I left a message just in case.
On 2nd February 2013 I wrote a note about some information not being mine to pass on. The issue of privacy, the subject of chapter 9 of my book, is really difficult. Sometimes the only way you can impart what you perceive to be an important piece of information is to lift that personal veil. It is a very difficult judgement call.
A little while ago I became a granddad. My issue lives about one and a half hours drive away. However I have not seen the little one very much. That is a shame but it is not my decision. I accept it and try to be as understanding as I can. However the Gang hiddenly listen when I talk about the subject to other people. They know how I feel. Someone else in my circle, older than me, also I think regrets that she did not see her grandchildren as much as she would have liked when they were growing up. She never mentions it out of context but the subject does seem to come up if I am low. When I don’t want my situation rammed down my throat. At those times I suspect it is something which has come up in conversations she has had with others I do not know. It is in her mind so it naturally get mentioned in conversation. That is how it works I am afraid.
The important thing to me though is that my book should be known about. You should read it. You will understand why I say that. These notes continue to be a useful record for the moment but, in a way, I write them because I have nothing better to do. I have also told my family I would like a film made of what I consider to be essentially a love story. Progress for my book and a film are my two current aims. I hope other things would fall satisfactorily into place after that.
16th April 2013
Now I have watched the Panorama programme I find it difficult to have strong views. It looked like a travelogue of a tourist trip. In my view it was no work of art. If the LSE had not said anything the piece would not, I believe, have made any mark. It does look a bit as though someone wanted to gang up on the BBC. My lasting impression I think is how uncomfortable I would have felt being treated like royalty in such an obviously threadbare society.
An eight month pregnant lady in her early 20s died yesterday after she fell from a multi-storey car park in Lowestoft. Later her three children aged just under one, two and three were found dead at a house in the town, presumably her home. The evening before she had placed an ultrasound scan of her baby on her Facebook page and said she would never do anything to hurt any of the four. She just wanted to keep them safe and happy.
Jon Donnison from BBC News reports on their website of the surprise resignation of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday. He is liked by the Americans, is a US educated economist and former official of the International Monetary Fund. He will remain as caretaker prime minister until President Mahmoud Abbas finds a replacement. Because of his independence it seems he has not got on well with either Fatah or Hamas in the past. Jon says you can read the situation in many ways, some positive some negative. One possibility is that Mr Fayyad wants to be free to build up his personal popularity with a view to himself being Palestinian president one day.
Yesterday’s FT reports that Network Rail are winning their battle against thieves stealing their metal cabling. Losses this year have fallen to half those of last. The company puts that down to partnership working especially with British Transport Police and scrap dealers. Railway cables are getting harder to steal and easier to identify.
Further on you find that world military spending fell 0.5% last year, the first decrease in 14 years. The US share of the total lessened to 40%.
From Roula Khalaf’s analysis in the issue my note on the al-Nusra Front last Thursday was not entirely accurate. Roula says al-Qaeda in Iraq are a spent, discredited force and Mr al-Kawani did in fact refuse to join forces with them. He got round the difficulty by instead pledging his allegiance over their heads directly to the al-Qaeda leader Mr al-Zawahiri. She also indentifies the Gang hidden strategy of the move. To feed Mr Assad’s preconceived idea that he is dealing with a bunch of terrorists; and winning against them. No need then for him to negotiate. She says it is rumoured he has rejected a proposal from his ally Iran to agree to a political transition. However she wonders if it was quite such a smart Gang move after all. It highlights to the moderate Syrian opposition that their ideology is different to al-Nusra’s. They should not cooperate with it too much. She says that access to Saudi purchased weapons in recent months have been a big boost to the moderate opposition side.
Part of the editorial column there is about the Israeli economy. It says that half the value of shares on the Tel Aviv stock exchange are controlled by 20 families. They have most of commerce buttoned up through their cronyism protected by some politicians, bureaucrats and regulators. I am pleased to read that both Mr Netanyahu and the Bank of Israel have tried to do something about that, without success so far. The influence of those families for the citizens of Israel has been no good. Output per person for those in work is 68% of US levels.
Things come and go. Edward Luce in his piece says the flavour of the moment in America is, suprisingly, Germany. How are they economically so strong? Two Republican state governors have been to the country recently to see if they can pick up any tips. According to the OECD the US comes last out of 29 countries when measuring the work readiness of school leavers. 46% of those who go to college fail to complete their four year degree course as envisaged.
Today there has been a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Iran close to it’s border with Pakistan and also affecting south west Afghanistan. The epicentre was in a desert area. Reports say at least four were killed in Iran and five in Pakistan. I havn’t seen any figures for Afghanistan.
A coach hired by a Brighton firm which organises school skiing trips for British children crashed in the French Alps this afternoon. It was bringing staff home at the end of the season when it seems it’s brakes failed as it was coming down the mountain from the ski resort. Reports say the driver died and three passengers are seriously injured.
One of my diary notes in the chapter 6 appendix of my book refers to the head of German intelligence resigning over lost records and murders of 10 immigrants over a period of at least six years until 2006. It has transpired that two of the three alleged murderers seemingly committed suicide after a botched bank robbery. The trial of the third is just starting as reported by Today yesterday. It is such a Gang story. It involves an accused with strange ideas, funny security and policing, and het up politicians. As her lawyer says there is no way such a long running saga could have happened without significant criminal underworld back up for the little neo-Nazi group. However no one will admit knowing anything about it at all.
After the Boston attack, but without any critiscism of at least 90% of those working on the programme, I do not think it a coincidence that in yesterday’s broadcast Today ran a piece on how America is finally coming to terms with the national emotional trauma of 9/11. I am not sure whether Gang plans were definite at that time but, if they weren’t, a little joke was provided for just in case.
In that transmission was a discussion involving the president of the Prison Governor’s Association on how to better the rehabilitation chances of sex offenders in our prisons.
A subject covered by the programme was a provision in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill to allow home owners to extend their properties by several metres without planning permission, for a temporary period of three years. I think the idea is to promote building, and therefore economic, activity. The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith said he thought it sounded like a recipe for neighbours to fall out with each other. He spoke sensibly I thought. Later he was one of 26 Conservative and Lib Dem MP’s who voted against the government’s plan in the Commons. That didn’t defeat the proposal but it was sufficient for Eric Pickles, Communities Secretary, to say he intended to put forward a compromise to allay the stated concerns. It must be said though he didn’t appear to yet know what revisions he was going to suggest.
Bill Bratton is a zero-tolerance American chief police officer and one time adviser to David cameron. He has served in Los Angelese, New York and Boston. By chance he happens to be in London at the moment so was available to appear in the Today studio this morning. He said he thought the police coped admirably in Boston yesterday.
My story essentially kicked off with the start of the financial crash as I explain in my book and my promotional leaflet. I just have a hunch this might be a related story therefore. As highlighted in the first financial report on the programme this morning it is possible big things have just started in the financial markets. Gold, the store of value in troubled times, has just experienced it’s biggest two day drop in thirty years. The contributor said he thought a sea change might have started not just for gold but commodities generally, such as oil. The supermarkets are reducing the price of petrol at the pumps today by two pence per litre. He thinks the speculative mindset of the past might be changing, based on future stability for the dollar. Amazingly he actually said we could be witnessing a return in confidence to the financial system. Just possibly the Gang Master might be on the run. We shall see.
Not a story I have seen before but a BBC Kent webpage published yesterday told me a man from Walmer has pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court to five charges of computer hacking. The systems concerned belonged to Kent Police and Oxford and Cambridge Universities. All were taken offine for a number of hours.
More killing. I asked the Gang Master in my note of 15th December 2012 to change his ways. He is not listening. Yesterday just before 7pm BST, mid afternoon local time, two bombs went off, separated by half a minute, in the American sunshine by the finish of the Boston marathon about an hour after the leaders had passed. I have heard it reported today that they comprised two pressure cookers packed with explosives, ballbearings and nails inside duffle coats. They were designed therefore to caused maximum mayhem at minimum effort. The bomber will have left them there with built in trigger mechanisms and simply walked away. The finish line was under extensive media coverage so sight and sound recording of the explosions and reactions was guaranteed. Three people have died, one an eight year old boy who had just seen his Dad finish the race, and more than 150 are injured with several amputations. All the indications are that it was a lone terrorist. There was no internet chatter beforehand or prior intelligence of any kind. It seems likely it is going to be a long FBI investigation. A crime scene has been isolated 12 building blocks wide. It will be a question of sifting though every scrap of evidence for that vital clue. In his second statement the President says Americans will do what is takes to find the assailant and bring that person to justice, under the rule of law. He had nothing but praise for his people. He said his fellow citizens are unafraid types.
About fifteen minutes after the bombs a fire, possibly caused by an incendiary device, occured at the JFK Library in Boston. The police say it is unrelated to the marathon incident.
The Bostom Marathon is of world renown. It is the oldest annual marathon and always run on Patriots Day. It has a special place in the hearts of Bostonians. Yesterday was Tax Day in the USA when all tax returns are due to the federal government. The Waco masscre, caused by FBI storming of the Mount Carmel Centre in Texas, took place on 19th April 1993. The Oklahoma Bombing happened on 19th April 1995. The film, Four Lions, as I discuss in chapter 5 of my book, is about a bomb plot on the London Marathon.
I do tend to wake up a bit early when I have things on my mind. Yesterday morning I wanted to make a visit to London and then send some emails. I became conscious at 5.30 on the dot, the time the News Briefing on Radio 4 starts. From that source I know on 16th April 1964 12 men were sentenced to a total of 307 years for their part in the Great Train Robbery the previous year. I refer to the heist in chapter 1 of my book.
I am pleased the Met Police Commissioner has chosen to say himself that everything will be fine for our marathon on Sunday. The Sports Minister and London Marathon Chief Executive have also spoken confidently. They would not have done that unless they were 90% certain.
17th April 2013
In Boston although pressure cooker bombs have been confirmed the information now given is that the carrying device is likely to have been a rucksack of nylon material. Perhaps that means there were two bombers, one to carry each bomb. For the explosions it seems each was put on the ground inside a black plastic bag. Commentators have picked up that President Obama yesterday seemed quite frustrated that his services, by the time of his second announcement, had no intelligence at all on the perpetrators. When you remember the Department of Homeland Security employs 240,000 and spent over $66 billion in 2011 you do sympathise with him.
Details on this are sparse but as far as I can make out two letters, postmarked 8th April in Tennessee and dated that day were found in a government postal screening facility on Monday. Both contained the highly toxic poison ricin. One was addressed to a Republican senator, the other to the President. Senators were told about the threat on them by the FBI during yesterday. Mr Obama was told last night. The President’s spokesman has specifically said any queries about the situation should be addressed to the FBI. CNN have reported that both letters in the envelopes say the same thing. ‘To see a wrong and not expose it is to become a silent partner to it’s continuance. I am K.C. and I approve this message’.
Another funny thing is that officialdom does not want to link the anthrax attacks made just after 9/11. Those mailings started on 18th September 2001, killing five and injuring 17.
Then I have picked up this afternoon what I feel is probably the predominant reason for the Boston bombs. John Kerry represented Massachusetts for nearly two decades in the US Senate. Boston is close to his heart. The granddaughter of a long lasting very close friend was standing next to one of the bombs when it went off. She is fighting to keep both her legs.
I have been wondering if the attack was in the form of an unhinged individual, such as at Sandy Hook, or criminal types doing a job for the money, which I believe was the case with the murder of Georgina Edmonds in Hampshire in January 2008. I go through that incident in chapter 3 of my book. The indications at the moment I feel are that Boston falls into the latter category.
As I mentioned last Wednesday I went to Redhill today. On my way there I was held up twice in the roadworks on the M25. A 4×4 had apparently broken down on the hard shoulder by the Clackett Lane services and there had been a minor scrape between a car and a foreign registered lorry where the M26 joins the M25 again blocking the inside lane. I was half an hour late for my meeting. Coming back I saw stationary traffic in front of me and fortunately was able to take an avoiding route off the motorway, otherwise I would never had got to my dentist’s appoimtment. I heard on the traffic report that motorists were taking one and a half hours to get through the eastbound M25 roadworks due to an accident.
Before I left Redhill I had a coffee in a town centre pub run by a national chain. After about twenty minutes a man sat in the row next to me. Shortly after another man came in, handed him a note of the realm and in return he took out a pouch of branded tobacco from his plastic bag and gave it to his acquaintence. I did not want to hang around and left. Just after walking out I passed a policeman standing at the side of the pavement passing the time of day. I did not say anything to him.
In doing that I acted pretty instinctively. On reflection I feel it was the appropriate, and probably the smartest, thing to do in my current circumstances.
Tesco have announced this morning that they are throwing in the towel on their American, Fresh & Easy, operation. With the Gang forces against them there they were on a hiding to nothing. They have also taken the opportunity it seems to have a thorough housekeeping exercise meaning their pre-tax profits have come down 51%. That has caused their share price to drop by up to 5%. The company is no longer going to build supermarkets on over 100 sites in it’s land bank.
Three extemely articulate, confident and rational young people were on Today this morning giving their views on Mrs Thatcher’s legacy.
Lady Thatcher’s funeral, attended by over 2000 dignitaries from abroad, went off smoothly this morning. There was not one arrest. I call that an unmitigated success. David Cameron was interviewed about her on Today. He mentioned how he thought about her as a young man and what a great leader he believed she was. Boris Johnson said much the same on the World at One at lunchtime. He said he was calmly confident about arrangements for Sunday’s marathon. I suspect he wanted to say something after receiving a briefing from our security forces.
Today interviewed the Dean of St Pauls about this morning’s funeral. He hoped the occasion would not be looked upon as political. A curchman’s job he said is to speak truth to power. I would like to extend that to say we should also speak truth to ourselves. Mrs Thatcher deserved a decent burial.
I see two of the visitors to London for the funeral were Mr Natanyahu and his wife.
Following my note from last Sunday there is no record of the reasoning but today’s FT says that on ministers’ lead the Commons declined yesterday to make it illegal in this county to discriminate on the basis of caste.
Most unusually in my experience an FT editorial on an unexpected event is written, in today’s paper, the publication day after it happened. Basically it calls for calm after the Boston bombings so the investigators can do their job. It tells off the Republican leader in the senate for trying to play politics with the outrage.
18th April 2013
My rule is not to name ordinary living citizens in these notes. I do not think it would be fair unless they have given their prior agreement. Therefore my phraseology is that I have just read two eloquent tributes, via a BBC webpage, by those close to Maurice Wrighton, the 64 year old coach driver who died in the French Alps on Tuesday. She told him to have peace, and sleep well as he deserved it. His star will shine brightly and all will see it. He said that every story about Maurice left you smiling. He will be a legend to us all. It seems Maurice took every precaution possible to prevent the coach veering off the precipice side of the road which would have caused many more deaths. The French transport minister visited Alpe d’Huez yesterday, where the Tour de France goes, to show his support.
History hides some amazing facts. There is a BBC News magazine webpage published this morning saying that in January 1913 Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in Vienna. At that time it was capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which consisted of 15 nations speaking a dozen languages and containing over 50 million inhabitants. It was a place you could hide yourself. But eveything imploded a year after when a new world began.
On 29th March 2013 I noted that the Stafford Hospital wrongs were first highlighted by a campaigning member of the public in November 2007. It seems a very similar scenario applies to the original Hillsborough inquest in 1991 which held that all 96 deaths on the pitch on 15th April 1989 and after were accidental. The mother of one of the dead fans, Anne Williams, has just died of cancer. She argued relentlessly for justice for her son. It was only in The Hillsborough Independent Panel’s report last September, over 23 years after the event, that her voice was finally heard. She was present at the High Court last December when a new inquest was order. She had won at last.
It has been confirmed that Mr Netanyahu had talks with Mr Cameron yesterday. He has also given an exclusive interview to Lyse Doucet of the BBC. He was calm and measured under close questioning. He says that his information is that Iran currently have 170 kilogrammes of 20% enriched uranium towards the requirement of 250 kilogrammes to produce a nuclear bomb.
Ten LSE students went on the Panorama trip to North Korea. Three have said they were deceived by the BBC. Six, two who have named themselves, have now written an open letter to the LSE director and chairman to say they believe their decison to go was well informed. In reply the LSE director of external relations said he respected their understanding of the situation. Nevertheless they were hoodwinked even though they didn’t recognise it. The LSE says they did not put the story into the public domain. It would be helpful to know how that did happen. It also transpires that threatening emails were sent by the North Korean regime after the trip saying they would expose the students as capitalist lakeys if Panorama did not cancel it’s broadcast. However the LSE makes the point that the media would have ferreted out the details anyway as the faces of some the students would be easily recognisable to others at home. All a bit of a mess.
Nevertheless I don’t think you should always sit on the fence. The six students say they are interested adults of international politics. They felt safe in North Korea, wanted to go and don’t now regret it. It seems strange therefore that the LSE, which refers to itself as one of the foremost social science universities in the world, should be thinking of arguments why, in a similar future situation, it would want to prevent it’s enquiring students from increasing their knowledge of our global community.
We do get things back to front sometimes. On Monday I read a BBC webpage saying Vodafone have found a nesting peregrine falcon, a protected species, in a faulty mobile phone mast in Southampton. They cannot make a repair as that would break the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Customers will have to wait until the eggs are hatched and the fledglings flown. That I feel is an example of the rigidity of the law sometimes leading to silly situations. And that generally some people seem to think the welfare of animals is more inportant than humans.
Normally the Gang are very careful to keep on the right side of the law unless a situation, as with phone hacking, creeps up on them by stealth. I go through that process for the newspapers in chapter 9 of my book. It seems exactly the same history applied to The Consulting Association. I haven’t been able to work out the connection with Scotland but it is the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee who have been looking into the affairs of the association, closed down in 2009. It was set up in about 1969 to create, maintain and operate a blacklist of men, primarily supported by the Sir Robert McAlpine company, building construction firms did not want to employ. Initially is was not illegal. Sometimes your practical employment rights would be taken away from you simply for expressing legitimate concerns on health and safety issues. The most private details about you could be recorded, such as your relationships. The organisation was paranoid about secrecy. In their interim report the MPs say it was an organised conspiracy by big construction firms which became criminal after the passing of the Data Protection Act in 1998. The fact that it’s activities continued for 11 years afterwards also says a lot I think.
An arrest has now been made in the ricin letters episode. The man is a 45 year old resident of Mississipi. He has the initials PKC.
I mentioned Waco in one of my paragraphs from Tuesday. Early this morning our time, firefighters were called to a blaze at a fertiliser factory within the small town of West 20 miles from Waco. When in attendance there was a massive explosion, probably of anhydrous ammonia used in the making of fertiliser. Shock waves went into the ground equivalent to a 2.1 richter scale earthquake. The death toll is currently put at between five and fifteen, with over 160 people injured. The circumstances of the incident remind me very much of the fireworks factory explosion in East Sussex in December 2006 when two fireman were killed tackling a blaze. A store of fireworks exploded which I don’t think the authorities realised was there. The father and son owners of the site were susequently jailed for manslaughter in December 2009.
My suspicion is that the West explosion is a diversionary tactic by the Gang Master to stop us thinking about Boston. If the Boston bombs were set off by criminals I doubt if it will be allowed for us to find out. It would be too easy for us to make the appropriate connections. The Gang I expect will try and protect that person or persons for the moment but ultimately, of course, we are all expendable.
In the Senate debate the proposition for background checks to be made before a gun licence can be granted had to be supported by 60% for it to pass against any challenge. It only received votes from 54 of the 100 seat assembly. It was a very good example, in my view, of the Gang story. Targeted people succumbing to the hidden pressures which they know are there but will not admit to anyone else. 86% of the American public support additional gun checks. It would reduce the risks of abominal things happening. President Obama accused his opponents of succumbing to the lobbying of the National Rifle Association. He referred to it as the end of round one.
Mr Obama is having a tough week. Boston, ricin, gun control and West. He will cope with it adimirable. I have just watched a clip of him giving a defiant, eloquent, poltical speech in Boston cathedral. I am especially pleased the chuch authorities agreed to provide that forum for him and Mr Obama considered in was the right venue for his speech.
Last week it was Korea. This week it is Syria. That feeling of Gang anger and the desire for retribution is there for everyone to see. President al-Assad has just given a rare TV interview. He says he is the one fighting the terrorists. We are the ones supporting them. Because of our foolishness we will find they will soon come to where we live and start terrorising us too.
Early on Today this morning a man explained that in Europe companies can only expel carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with permission. But there is no law as such, they just buy permission in the form of carbon credits. If the cost of the credits is too low there is no incentive for them not to pollute the air, the whole object of our green future. You may already have guessed there is a problem of us having too many credits in existence due it would seem, at least in part, to action of the European Commission. Unfortunately the interview was not long enough to go into any further detail.
The law is not perfect and neither are judges but by and large the system works. Hopefully we are tweeking and improving provisions all the time. One thing though, in my view, is that governments should be extremely careful not to break the law themselves. If they do they get themselves into all sorts of trouble. In this country our bete noire is Abu Qatada. In America it is Guantanamo Bay. There was a Channel 4 News piece earlier in the week on the current hunger strikes in Cuba and a section came up on Today this morning too. Apparently it has been settled that 89 of the 166 detainees have no charges to answer but still they languish there. Hardly surprising some have lost all hope. I don’t pretend to understand but it is obviously one of those impossible situations where the Gang have us just where they want us. There is not sufficient American political will to get the situation sorted.
Later on we heard a man from the Independent Drugs Commission for Brighton and Hove explaining that his body would like to see drug consumption rooms set up in his town where addicts could feed their habit in safe and clean conditions under medical supervision. No more needles dropped, and huddled figures, in darkened alleyways. Such provision already exists in Holland. Later in the day the government said it disapproves of suck kite flying. Currently it would be illegal.
A scientist from Cambridgeshire has just been jailed for three months for falsifying data in cancer drug research trials. I have not picked up any known motive for his action but a lady on the programme was saying it is in fact quite a large problem. The scientific community is in collective denial about the situation.
The last item was about Tesco’s problems in the States. It seems that Fresh & Easy only made a few mistakes, such as forgetting that in their targeted area most shoppers make infrequent shopping trips by car, but the ones they did make were fundamantal. They were led astray by sloppy thinking.
Now I have seen the evening TV news bulletins I would say that the West explosion was definitely not a Gang Master act of anger. It was a deliberate thought through warning to the at least tens of thousands of Gang helpers in America to watch their tongues. The fire occured at 8pm whilst it was still light, facilitating the use of camera lenses. A school was the nearest building with a care home for 140 further away over the road. Both were demolished by the blast. The death toll would have been much greater I suspect if the fire had started, as it easily could, during the school day.
19th April 2013
I referred yesterday to impossible situations. I feel it a very good way to describe Gang settings. Syria is one, as are Palestine, Iran, North Korea and, in my opinion, American politics. Libya was almost one. It is an extremely relevant phrase for my private life. It describes for me that balance of good and evil forces pushing against each other producing a stalemate in the middle. The baddies use greed, fear and intimidation. The goodies try and counter with kindness, calmness, truthfulness and confidence building measures. The equilibrium only changes slowly over time. You can only hope that in the end the better side will win.
A 83 year old entertainer was interviewed under caution on suspicion of sexual molestation in November after allegations by one lady. I did not know about that. However the Sun broke the story on their website today and all other mainstream media organisations followed. Possibly it was a discussed step by them all. We are told that he was arrested for the offence at the end of last month and bailed to appear at the police station again in May. He has always been a respected member of British society and painted a portrait of The Queen in 2005.
I have just heard Mark Mardell say on the World at One that the whole of Boston has been put in lockdown in the hunt for the remaining bombing fugitive. The feeling you get is of everyone being extremely afraid. Perhaps that is what easy access to guns does for you. Mark says the damaging psychological effect on Bostonians is likely to be worse than that of the actual bombs on Monday themselves. Well, that is a surprise.
It was late evening our time yesterday that the FBI released street security camera images of two suspects they wanted to question in relation to the Boston bombings. Today also followed the story this morning. Each was carrying a heavy nylon backpack which would fit in with one bomb each. The one with the dark baseball cap probably placed the first pressure cooker and the second with the white cap, the other one. Today said that the second man was seen talking on a cellphone. From the start we were told the men looked like university students so I suspect the FBI probably knew more about the situation than was being passed on. With the panic that has since ensued there doesn’t seem much chance of finding out more about that though for the moment. The rumour I have picked up from my normal outlets is they were going to release the photos a couple of days ago but changed their minds at the last moment. Before 7am it came through that there had been a shooting at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology on the northern outskirts of Boston where a campus police officer was killed. It involved the two suspects, brothers aged aged 19 and 26, of Chechen origin who moved to the States about 10 years ago. They hijacked a car and a shoot out with the police occured. The older dark capped brother was killed, the younger escaped. As I write in mid afternoon he has not yet been apprehended.
Having listened to PM this afternoon it is clear I was barking up the wrong tree the day before yesterday when I was thinking the Boston killings might have been criminal. The 26 year old was looked upon as a loner in his community. His social media shows he has become excessively drawn to Islam and, I presume, carried out his deeds for jihadist reasons. He probably influenced his younger brother. That strikes me like the now 25 year old man in the Aurora cinema shootings from July 2012 when not three but 12 people lost their lives. As I remark in chapter 10 of my book he seemed to lose the rationality of his mind in a matter of months. A former classmate said she never received any creepy vibes from him at all. Similary there was a young American lady speaking on PM this afternoon. She went to high school wth Monday’s teenage bomber too and was completely stunned by her acquaintence’s actions. She said he was normal, reserved but jovial. He always smiled at you as he passed. She was deeply upset. Her predominant thought was that he must not be killed. Only then might she have a chance of understanding, through his own words, what turned and motivated him.
It has been reported today that a 25 year old man found dead in his flat in Swansea on Thursday had measels. That does not mean of course that measels killed him. A post mortem examination will be carried out. I notice the man’s name is the same as that of the GCHQ officer working for MI6 who was found dead in his Bath in London in August 2010 and for which no one was ever apprehended.
I wrote about home extensions on Tuesday and the compromise put forward by Mr Pickles is, effectively, for the existing planning process to apply but without the formal permission or refusal bit at the end. Neighbours are consulted as a matter of course at the moment so under the new arrangement they will still have the ability to object if they wish. The rebels seem happy with that.
The Weekend FT has a light hearted Agony Uncle column although the gentleman has a very acerbic tongue if he wishes to use it. Last Saturday though he showed his softer side with a tribute to his friend Lady Thatcher. He referred to several out of the public eye moments showing her to be a loving and caring mother and wife. Apparantly she thought the world of Dennis.
20th April 2013
The Boston chapter is over. Time for some quiet reflection I hope. For one day a teenager paralysed the life of a city of nearly one million. I understand that was due to the decision of the governor of Massachusetts. I believe his lockdown request was made with the best of intentions but was misguided. He did just what the Gang Master would have wanted. He look away his citizens’ right to be responsible for their own safety; to act as they thought best. His action made Bostonians more fearful, in my view, than necessary. Over those hours all the resouces of the national Anerican State were not able to find the man. The lockdown was lifted. Shortly after a man was out walking and saw blood on the ground. It led to a hiding place. The man did the right thing and called the police. The fugitive was caught.
It seems clear the police have the right man. He obviously does not think as a suicide bomber would. His actions seem much more in the role of a freedom fighter. He wanted to survive so he could battle another day. I am so pleased he is still alive. I am sure he will want to tell us about his grievances and we should want to listen to him. Not so as to show him symphathy for what he has done but to understand for ourselves how his mind became twisted so that he could conclude it was reasoanble to kill innocent people he did not know to further his cause. Once we have that knowledge we can move forward to the next stage of trying to reduce the risk of such a thing happening again.
Then the is the wording of the ricin letter. My initials are TMD. My friends would probably better recognise me as MD. The Gang are not deep thinkers. They just destabilise when they see an opportunity. They home in ruthlessly where they perceive a weakness. Their experience has always shown them, when they act like that, their target will buckel a bit. He will make a bad judgement call so they can exploit him further aiding them along their merry way. An impossible situation I know. Somehow the impasse must be broken.
There was an knowledgeable report by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in last Suturday’s FT. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad is not allowed to run for president for a third term in June so he is supporting his brother-in-law, confidant and friend Mr Rahim-Mashaei. His friend hasn’t declared his candidacy but it seems likely he will. It is said he is into cult pratices including magic and superstition and ultimately would like to have management of the world. With an agenda like that the Supreme Leader doesn’t like him, as you might expect. The Ayatollah wants a high turnout for the poll, for it to be peaceful and for the winner to be loyal to him. However it seems he dislikes the radicals of Iran even less than the relation. If a progressive runs for president he will go for the man he distrusts. A funny old world. What happens, in my view, when those clever hidden manoeuvrings are at work.
Also in that paper was an article on the culture of corruption in New York and it’s state capital Albany. One person spoken to said half of public officials could be jailed for what they get up to. 80% of voters consider that corruption around them is serious.
The Person in the News in that edition is the billionaire and Israel’s richest man, Idan Ofer. He has decided he would feel more comfortable living in London where he plans to move.
A story illustrating how a young enquiring mind can equal the most eminent of academics is on a BBC webpage today. A student at a university there was doing a project based on an American Economic Association paper analysing how economic growth is affected by a county’s debt. He didn’t agree with the conclusion. At first he could hardly believe his own figures himself: his tutors couldn’t either. Ultimately though he did question the two authors of the paper. Through human error they had only included details of 15 countries in their figures not the 20 they intended. The audacity of the young. We are lucky to have them.
Another page informs me a man from Manchester has been jailed for putting a hypodermic needle into a loaf of bread bought in a Tesco store there last December. The needle contained his DNA so I presume he had used it himself. The gentleman has refused to tell anyone why he did it. I recall the man who is charged with kidnapping and murdering April Jones has also chosen to keep his own counsel in court so far, although he did cry when he appeared in Aberystwyth Magistates Court on 8th October 2012.
On Thursday I said the law is not perfect and an example of how it can be manipulated, in my view, is also reported by the BBC today. A self employed lady did some translation work for a company in Qatar. Her invoice was £146. The company paid late and when it did sent less than the invoiced amount. The lady expressed her frustration on Twitter. The company are therefore suing her £50,000 damages for libel and £70,000 for their legal costs. Very kindly a firm of solicitors and barrister have offered to take up the lady’s case on a no win, no fee basis.
General Pervez Musharraf first came to power in Pakistan in a military coup in 1999. He made himself president in June 2001. After the February 2008 general election he was forced from office, ultimately resigning in August of that year. He left the country. Throughout his terms in office he had been battling for supremacy with the judiciary so when he decided to return to stand in next month’s general election it was a risky move. The judges now wish to get their own back. With him being in their jurisdiction he is facing various criminal charges and this week has been placed under judicial house arrest. I am sure everyone is hoping that the forthcoming elections are not destabilsed in any way.
21st April 2013
Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix today. The country has been experienceing unrest now for two years. The event allows the protesters to publicise their grievances but the Royal Family, with Saudi Arabian backing, are far stronger than they. I have seen the Crown Prince give an interview saying the kingdom does intend to move forward into the modern world but wants that taken at the appropriate pace. He wishes to encourage human rights but that must be balanced with the maintenance of law and order.
Went up to Blackheath to watch the start of the London Marathon today in order to show my support to them all. The weather was gorgeous. I would say the security was effective but discreet. Helicopters and lapel attached two way police radios are useful things when you are keeping individuals safe.
I intimated yesterday that I thought it would be immensly therapeutic for those who live where the Boston teenager lives, to hear his side of things. If their minds are open they will then be able to understand better and, in my view, better keep their emotions in check. I fully realise the legal process must be respected but I hope that may be possible in some form or other.
This is something I haven’t wanted to think about too much but it is a subject at which I need to have a go. Ever since the killings in Utoeya, the event which made me contact the Prime Minister on 23rd July 2011 as shown in appendix 11/8 of my book, I have wondered how the Gang can arrange such atrocities seemingly to order. I think the key must be their intelligence network. People who themselves think they have decided they want to do harm to others are noted on their database. They can then be encouraged and supported in their views. Led in the direction that fits in with Gang plans. They might even be supplied with the necessary materials. All they then lack is the opportunity and final commitment to carry out their desired deed. When that opening does comes along therefore, and all the loose ends slip into place, they seize it with both hands.
I have been at this story a long time now. I am a person with many faults. I would like to think my good qualities outweigh my bad. But I have made many mistakes along the way, almost exclusively in how I have related to those I love. In some ways I wish I was a stronger person for them but I am not. I can only do what my genes will allow me to to. In relation to where we are now I think all any of us can do is be as smart as we can, make offers and see if they are accepted. If they are not we move on and make offers somewhere else. One day you will find someone who sees things the same way you do.